Invidia

TEN

The door opened and the accumulation of years' worth of dust smacked the boys straight in the face. "Oh, God!" Eli choked and the other two were spitting the dust out.

"Well, let's see where this goes," Cameron said when he finally finished coughing. The hallway immediately turned to the right, and as soon as they'd passed the sooted up bricks, it was flawless. The bricks looked brand new, and the tile floor was spotless. "This is new," Cameron observed. "These tiles are new. The bricks are new. Hell, even the ceiling is new," he finished with a glance up.

"They're either new or someone wanted them to look that way," Justin thought.

"That's also a possibility," he noted. They walked down the bland but spotless hallway in silence, and with each step, Cameron's anxiety grew. His gut was telling him to turn back, but he couldn't do that until he'd found and saved Madison. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling. It was ever-present, similar to the fear of his stepfather.